A little further down the comments page, Jon Gold and Boris Epstein pointed out the following:

What I think is hysterical is that you’re portraying the 9/11 Truth Movement as a movement that is in 100% agreement regarding Controlled Demolition. Like that’s one of the pre-requisites of being apart of the movement. You guys are funny. Sad, and funny.
Jon Gold | Homepage | 11.21.07 – 4:48 pm |

Very good point, Jon. It is incredible that the crowd here can’t even comprehend the concept that the Movement agrees on very few things, one of them being that the official story si a sham. I guess they would eb the sort of people who would always demand that the defense attorneys in a trial find the bad guy themselves – no matter how obviously or how badly the cops and prosecution may have fucked up.
Boris Epstein | Homepage | 11.21.07 – 5:00 pm |

Anyhow, no, I’m not likely to become another Mikey Metz. Unlike Metz, I’m not someone who jumped into the 9/11 Truth movement upon seeing Loose Change. On the contrary, for quite a while I had a strong prejudice against the 9/11 Truth movement, a prejudice that was overcome only after a couple of months’ worth of intensive study of what some people on both sides had to say.

My initial bad impressions

My first encounter with a 9/11 Truth activist, back in October 2005, left a very bad impression on me. This was a guy with whom I’d had some previous online interaction, in a totally different context, for about six months. Suddenly one day he IM’d me to say, “hey diane, did you know that 9-11 was staged and what they have told everyone about it are lies?” When I asked him for his evidence, he referred me to two websites. One was a website featuring very far-fetched ideas like video fakery and holograms. The other was one of Alex Jones’s sites. I was thoroughly unimpressed. Then, about a year later, I had a couple more IM chats with this guy and was even more unimpressed. By then he had become a dyed-in-the-wool convert to Alex Jones’s entire belief system, including some ideas I personally found very offensive.

Not only did this guy and his favorite websites strike me as completely nutty, but I’ve long had (and to some extent still have) a very strong dislike of “conspiracy theories,” which I’ve long associated with things like Jew-hating ideologies, the “Satanic Ritual Abuse” scare, and assorted religious right wing nuttiness. I still strongly reject “conspiracism” in the sense of belief in an ongoing worldwide, world-micromanaging conspiracy. (See my blog posts on Chip Berlet and “Conspiracism” and Taking responsibility for counteracting bigotry in our midst.) And my commitment to opposing religion-based bigotry runs very deep, long pre-dating my interest in the 9/11 Truth movement.

How I joined the 9/11 Truth movement

In June 2007 I attended an anti-war/anti-Bush event held by World Can’t Wait. Out on the sidewalk, before the meeting, I overheard two men debating about the possibility that the World Trade Center had been demolished with explosives. At that point I was not at all inclined to believe any such thing, but the debate aroused my curiosity.

A few weeks later, it occurred to me to wonder whether there were any engineers who believed that the World Trade Center had been demolished by any means other than just the plane crashes and subsequent fires. So I Googled around and eventually found the website of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which in turn had links to Jim Hoffman’s sites. I found his claims to be very troubling, but I was favorably impressed by his explicit rejection of no-planes theories and other such wackiness.

For the next couple of months after that, I spent most of my spare time studying Jim Hoffman’s sites and trying to check his claims independently. For example, I looked at some fire engineering and materials engineering websites to verify his claims about fire temperatures and strength of steel. I even spent an afternoon down at Ground Zero checking his claims about which buildings in the neighborhood had and had not been damaged. (I discovered that he had overlooked a few buildings that had been severely damaged. I then came home, looked online for more information about those buildings, and emailed Jim Hoffman about them.) I spent quite a bit of time looking at various 9/11 “debunking” sites too.

I did not want to believe what I was reading on Jim Hoffman’s websites. But I felt that it was vitally important for me, as a concerned citizen and a political activist, to arrive at an informed decision on this matter, one way or the other. So, it was important for me to consider carefully what both sides had to say.

Whenever I found an error on one of Jim Hoffman’s sites, I emailed him about it. He nearly always wrote back, thanking me, and either corrected the error or promised to correct it later. Thus I got the feeling that he was honest and trying to build a genuinely strong case.

I was still rather fearful of the 9/11 Truth movement, though. During the summer I also attended several anti-war rallies, at one of which I got into a conversation with a guy who complained about how “right wing” the 9/11 Truth people are.

But I eventually discovered that the New York 9/11 Truth group included people all over the political spectrum. I began attending New York 9/11 Truth meetings sometime in late August, if I remember correctly, and I attended its conference on the 9/11 Anniversary weekend.

In late September, I wrote up a bunch of suggestions for improving the pamphlet which New York 9/11 Truth hands out at street actions. Mainly I suggested deleting the weaker arguments. I also suggested a few things to add or modify. I gave copies of my suggestions to Les Jamieson and a few other longtime members. My suggestions were welcomed, and we’re now working on revising the pamphlet.

I’ve also participated in several street actions. I intend to participate in more, especially once we manage to put together a better pamphlet.

WTC 7: “Extreme” tilt?

I’ll now respond briefly to another of the comments on the “Screw Loose Change” blog. In response to the following brief comment of mine:

For what it’s worth, I disagree with Pat that the tilt was “slight”. In the context of a high-rise building, the degree of tilt seen in those photos is rather extreme.
Cl1mh4224rd | 11.21.07 – 7:36 pm

To me this sounds very strange. First, here’s a page of videos of the collapse of WTC 7, taken from network TV broadcasts. Admittedly the view here is from the north, so we can’t see a southward tilt very well, but it can’t possibly have tilted very much. So, what Cl1mh4224rd must be saying is that even a small tilt is somehow “extreme.” But what does this person mean by “extreme”? Just that it would be “extreme” enough to damage surroundings? If so, fair enough.

Or does Cl1mh4224rd mean to claim that WTC 7’s tilt was “extreme” compared to the way a high-rise building should “normally” be expected to fall in a “natural” collapse? Does Cl1mh4224rd mean to suggest that a high-rise building would inevitably collapse almost straight down no matter what? In other words, if someone wanted to demolish a high-rise building and have it come straight down, almost perfectly so, it would be completely unnecessary to use explosives? All that would be needed would be to give the building a few hard whacks with a wrecking ball and then set it on fire in any old random way, and then just sit back and wait several hours for the building to come straight down? Can that possibly be true?

I find it rather disturbing, that you got introduced to this movement via ae911truth. Did you know, that Richard Gage has faked one demolition audio in his presentation? He has removed the explosive sounds from a Philips building demolition in Norway to make it appear that in real demolitions no explosions are heard. Gage echoes the work of David Ray Griffin (because Griffin is the one who turned Gage into a truther). And Griffin is just dead wrong.

Hoffman on the other had get something correct. But nothing regarding WTC. It seems every truther have their own niche, that they just can’t get over with. Some concentrate on Pentagon, some on LIHOP, some on stand down, Hoffman on WTC.

Did you know Hoffman also thinks the planes were remotely controlled and says money could have bought the silence of all the people involved?

I think it’s great to look for answers, but one has got to be careful. The truth movement if full of omissions and distortions.

Thanks, Diane, for actually reading and intelligently discussing Bazant’s paper. This alone puts you way ahead of most truthers. Most never read it, of the ones who have, few can intelligently discuss it.

Actually Diane, all buildings do tend to fall straight down. You can see this for yourself by drawing a free body diagram of a gravity collapse. Imagine that a lower floor of a building suddenly and completely failed. The remaining floors above have no support below. There is then only one force acting on the upper floors, gravity, and the direction is straight down through the footprint of the building.

Unfortunately, you still have not backed up your “opinion” that WTC 7 should not have fallen as it did as a result of damage and fire inflicted by the collapse of WTC 1. You have presented no basis for your opinion.

Again, the burden of proof rests on your shoulders to support your claims with evidence.

Dinae Wrote:
“To me this sounds very strange. First, here’s a page of videos of the collapse of WTC 7, taken from network TV broadcasts. Admittedly the view here is from the north, so we can’t see a southward tilt very well, but it can’t possibly have tilted very much. So, what Cl1mh4224rd must be saying is that even a small tilt is somehow “extreme.” But what does this person mean by “extreme”? Just that it would be “extreme” enough to damage surroundings? If so, fair enough.”

It means that even a slight tilt in a tall building is evidence of severe structural damage. This was known to the firefighters at the scene, who evacuated a perimeter around WTC 7 before it fellhttp://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm

Note these quotes in particular:

“Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.”

The link is broken, and, unfortunately, the Internet Archive site doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. Can you provide a more up-to-date link? Preferably to a page or two containing a picture of the building before it burned?

Do you have any pictures of the building itself, before the fire? I’m wondering approximately how long and wide the building was, compared to its height. Apparently the building was not very tall. The story mentions people jumping from upper floors, the highest floor mentioned being the fourth.

In my experience, factories are typically much longer and wider than they are tall, thus not a good comparison to a tower.

I don’t have any pictures of the Kader Factory. You can get the book on Kader, “Industrial Inferno” by Peter Symonds in the Research Library of the NY Public Library, or buy it on Amazon. Maybe it has what you are looking for.

Not the whole thing yet, by any means, although I’ve looked at a few specific parts

I find it rather disturbing, that you got introduced to this movement via ae911truth. Did you know, that Richard Gage has faked one demolition audio in his presentation? He has removed the explosive sounds from a Philips building demolition in Norway to make it appear that in real demolitions no explosions are heard.

I’ve seen his presentation a couple of times, and I don’t remember anything that would convey the impression that “in real demolitions no explosions are heard.” Two questions regarding this alleged fakery:

1) Did he remove just the explosive sounds while leaving in other, concurrent sounds, or did he just mute the whole thing (other than his own voice)?

2) Did he explicitly CLAIM that there were no sounds of explosions?

I would see nothing deceptive about simply muting the sound, most likely just to avoid distractions from his speech. Everyone knows that explosions sound like explosions.

Gage’s video presentation does contain some errors (e.g. the “30-foot-lengths ready for shipment” claim). A project I’ve been meaning to do for a while is to watch his video presentation again, taking careful notes this time, and email him with comments including the errors I noticed.

Hoffman on the other had get something correct. But nothing regarding WTC.

Literally “nothing” regarding the WTC? Surely you exaggerate.

Did you know Hoffman also thinks the planes were remotely controlled

Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m not inclined to agree. But it’s not my impression that that’s a dogmatic belief of his. It seems to me to be just speculation on his part.

and says money could have bought the silence of all the people involved?

Notable counterexample: the top part of WTC 2, which tilted quite a bit before it finally did start falling downward. Another counterexample: The very imperfect demolition of the Maspeth gas tanks. I’m sure there are plenty of other, similar counterexamples. I’ll keep an eye out for them.

I’ll reply to the rest of your comment as part of a future post. Ditto for some comments by other people here pertaining to WTC 7 and building collapses generally.

“Craig Carlsen — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 8]
… you just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was.”

“You just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the floors collapsing to where the plane had hit”

Seems he intentionally left out a rather important part, doesn’t it?

Diane wrote:”Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m not inclined to agree. But it’s not my impression that that’s a dogmatic belief of his. It seems to me to be just speculation on his part.”

“Accepting the conclusion that the World Trade Center skyscrapers were felled by controlled demolition implies that the entire attack was engineered by insiders. It would not be rational for the planners of such an attack to entrust a key component of the operation — the piloting of the jetliners — to any human pilot.”

and

“even if it were physically possible for the maneuver to have been executed by a suicide hijacker, that scenario wouldn’t make sense for several reasons”

“Money is very persuasive, and given the magnitude of the economic interests riding on the success of the attack (measurable in hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars), huge sums could have bought people’s cooperation.”

Diane, I know he makes it seem like legit investigation. But it’s not. He is not correct, and I have presented you examples.

Diane Wrote:
“Notable counterexample: the top part of WTC 2, which tilted quite a bit before it finally did start falling downward. Another counterexample: The very imperfect demolition of the Maspeth gas tanks. I’m sure there are plenty of other, similar counterexamples. I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

That’s why I used the term “tend to.” Although rotational forces were introduced at Maspeth, if you calculated the vertical distance traveled by the top of the tank, and compared it to the rotational arc distance, the vertical component would still overwhelm the rotational.

Most CDs fall largely within their own footprint, although some are deliberately toppled and a few are botched. But many natural building collapses are also largely within the footprint, with the notable exception of buildings that overturned by earthquakes, because earthquakes introduce horizontal forces that push the building to the side. You’d also expect this in wind-induced collapse. Here a few natural collapses, not due to to bombs, wind or earthquake that fell largely within their own footprint.

Gangaram india – 1983. This collapse of a building under construction killed passersby and persons in an adjacent building. But photos appear to show that it mostly fell backward but a good amount of the debris fell within the building footprint.http://www.karnatakafireservices.gov.in/accidentgangaram.htm

Mumbai, India – 2007
Again, much but not all of the building fell within the footprint. near-witnesses said , “There was a huge sound and a crash,” said Meghna Parekh, who lives nearby. “We rushed out and all we saw was this huge mountain of mud and no building.””

Cuba – date unknown. A good amount of debris spilled into the street, but judging from the size and location of the visible rubble, an equal or greater amount of rubble must be within the building footprint.

Yes. No surprises there. I’m aware that there was reason to expect WTC 7 to collapse. I’ve pointed this out myself in previous blog posts, e.g. in Straight-down collapse of WTC 7 – what do “debunkers” say?. To me, what’s suspicious about the collapse of WTC 7 is not the mere fact that it collapsed, but the way it collapsed. I’ll discuss this in detail in a forthcoming post (hopefully later today, if there aren’t too many other comments for me to respond to).

I think it’s great to look for answers, but one has got to be careful. The truth movement if full of omissions and distortions.

Unfortunately, every political movement that I know of has its share of sloppy propaganda. Furthermore, it’s my impression that the right wing alternative media are especially bad in this regard. Alas, the 9/11 Truth movement has gotten much of its publicity from the right wing alternative media. So, yes, we do need to be careful.

“Craig Carlsen — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 8]
… you just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was.”

“You just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the floors collapsing to where the plane had hit”

Seems he intentionally left out a rather important part, doesn’t it?

When reporting on witness testimony, it is legitimate to focus on direct initial impressions rather than on subsequent beliefs. Still, I agree with you that it would have been better to report the person’s subsequent beliefs as well, if those are easily known, or at least to include a general statement along the lines of: “At least some of the witnesses cited here on this page, despite what they heard and saw, were later persuaded that what they witnessed was caused just by the floors collapsing.”

Diane wrote:”Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m not inclined to agree. But it’s not my impression that that’s a dogmatic belief of his. It seems to me to be just speculation on his part.”

“Accepting the conclusion that the World Trade Center skyscrapers were felled by controlled demolition implies that the entire attack was engineered by insiders. It would not be rational for the planners of such an attack to entrust a key component of the operation — the piloting of the jetliners — to any human pilot.”

and

“even if it were physically possible for the maneuver to have been executed by a suicide hijacker, that scenario wouldn’t make sense for several reasons”

It’s not just speculation. It’s his actual hardcore belief.

A couple of months ago, I had a long phone conversation with him about this very issue. I gave him a bunch of reasons why I thought his scenario was unlikely, the main one being that it implies faked phone conversations from the passengers and crew – quite an extra complication. At the end of the conversation, he still seemed inclined to believe his scenario, but he seemed open to considering alternatives. I didn’t get the impression that he was nearly as committed to the idea of automated piloting as he is, say, to his belief that the towers were demolished by means other than just the airplane impacts plus subsequent fires.

Admittedly, since you weren’t in on that phone convo, you can’t be faulted for not knowing the above.

“Money is very persuasive, and given the magnitude of the economic interests riding on the success of the attack (measurable in hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars), huge sums could have bought people’s cooperation.”

But that same page also says: “Operatives would be carefully screened to assure their loyalty to the attack’s planners and to each other. Given the magnitude of the crime, admission of involvement would expose a conspirator to swift silencing by co-conspirators, vigilante justice by an outraged public, or harsh judgment by a court of law. It is also possible that many of the operatives could have been killed before or during the attack.”

So, while he does believe that money could have played a key role, he apparently believes that more than just money would have been necessary. Your earlier statement that he “says money could have bought the silence of all the people involved” is an overstatement of his view on the role of money as distinct from other factors.

Furthermore, in addition to the actual conspirators, of whom he believes there were probably very few, he also believes that many other people were involved unwittingly. Nowhere does he claim that all those many other people were paid money, or that they all could have been paid money.

If you’re going to complain about out-of-context “quote mining,” please don’t engage in it yourself.

For these reasons I made the decision (without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else – as ranking fire officer, that decision was my responsibility) to clear a collapse zone surrounding the building and to stop all activity within that zone. Approximately three hours after that order was given, WTC 7 collapsed.

Nigro’s claim of sole responsibility “without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else” contradicts Larry Silverstein’s claim (in the televised interview that contained the infamous “pull it” remark) that the decision to “pull” was made by the fire commander after discussing it with Silverstein. (By the way, I interpret “pull” in this context as a decision to “pull” all activities in the collapse zone, not a decision to plant explosives or incendiaries, which would have to have been done much earlier, if indeed it was done.)

Diane wrote: “Nigro’s claim of sole responsibility “without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else” contradicts Larry Silverstein’s claim (in the televised interview that contained the infamous “pull it” remark) that the decision to “pull” was made by the fire commander after discussing it with Silverstein.”

It sure is the responsibility of the ranking fire officer to make that decision. Silverstein could have exaggerated his role in the decision making process. Or Chief Nigro could have politely left Silverstein with an impression that he had a role in the process, eventhough the decision was already made.

Whatever the case, I am most honoured to have had an opportunity to discuss this and a couple of other issues with Chief Nigro. He has my utmost respect.

Diane wrote: “A couple of months ago, I had a long phone conversation with him about this very issue. I gave him a bunch of reasons why I thought his scenario was unlikely, the main one being that it implies faked phone conversations from the passengers and crew – quite an extra complication. At the end of the conversation, he still seemed inclined to believe his scenario, but he seemed open to considering alternatives. I didn’t get the impression that he was nearly as committed to the idea of automated piloting as he is, say, to his belief that the towers were demolished by means other than just the airplane impacts plus subsequent fires.

Admittedly, since you weren’t in on that phone convo, you can’t be faulted for not knowing the above”

You are right, I had no idea about your convo. Or that you had such close contact with him. Would he be willing to debate his views with some debunkers?

My impression has always been, that Hoffman mainly believes the CD theories. Other theories come on the side, but CD is his bread and butter. Why does he call Zdenek Bazant ignorant of structural engineering?

Diane wrote: “When reporting on witness testimony, it is legitimate to focus on direct initial impressions rather than on subsequent beliefs. Still, I agree with you that it would have been better to report the person’s subsequent beliefs as well, if those are easily known, or at least to include a general statement…”

My stand is, that better report the entire witness testimony.

Diane wrote: “So, while he does believe that money could have played a key role, he apparently believes that more than just money would have been necessary. Your earlier statement that he “says money could have bought the silence of all the people involved” is an overstatement of his view on the role of money as distinct from other factors.”

You are correct. That was a bit of an overstatement from my part. The point however stands, he strongly suggests that money plays a key role in keeping people silent, who would knowingly cover up the murder of thousands. To me that’s an outrageous suggestion. Would money play a key role in keeping you silent?

Anyway, he has no evidence. Nothing. All speculation.

Diane wrote: “Furthermore, in addition to the actual conspirators, of whom he believes there were probably very few, he also believes that many other people were involved unwittingly. Nowhere does he claim that all those many other people were paid money, or that they all could have been paid money.”

That’s just more speculation trying to prove the impossible. Those “unwitting” would be the media, FEMA, FBI, etc. he says. If the FBI investigators and thousands of other going through the rubble were unwitting, how come not a single hint of a demolition charge or a piece of wiring has been found? They sure would have found those, since they are found at every demolition pile.

To me his speculation is nonsense. Just some make up stories trying to make it all seem plausible, when it most certainly is not.

You are right, I had no idea about your convo. Or that you had such close contact with him.

As mentioned in my post above, I sent him quite a bit of email back in August and September pointing out various errors on his site (mostly minor things like typos, but also some more substantial things too), all of which he appreciated. Eventually, when I then wrote to him about my objections to the automatically-controlled planes scenario, he offered to discuss this matter with me on the phone. I wouldn’t say that he and I are in “close” contact, but we’ve had several more phone conversations since then too.

Would he be willing to debate his views with some debunkers?

I don’t know. I’ll ask. Do you have anyone in particular in mind for him to debate with? Also, are you proposing an in-person public debate in front of a live audience, or just an online debate on a message board? I’m pretty sure that he would not be interested in the latter. He has told me that he is very busy these days, and that he is behind on updating his websites. But I think he might be interested in an in-person public debate, or perhaps a radio show.

Diane wrote: “So, while he does believe that money could have played a key role, he apparently believes that more than just money would have been necessary. Your earlier statement that he “says money could have bought the silence of all the people involved” is an overstatement of his view on the role of money as distinct from other factors.”

You are correct. That was a bit of an overstatement from my part. The point however stands, he strongly suggests that money plays a key role in keeping people silent, who would knowingly cover up the murder of thousands. To me that’s an outrageous suggestion. Would money play a key role in keeping you silent?

No, but I’m also not the kind of person who would participate in such a plot in the first place. Remember what Jim Hoffman also said, as I quoted above: “Operatives would be carefully screened to assure their loyalty to the attack’s planners and to each other.” If a person were already predisposed to be “loyal” to such a plot in the first place, then money might be an added inducement.

The point of his speculation, indeed the point of the entire page you quoted, is not to prove anything, but merely to answer objections. His evidence is elsewhere on the site.

If the FBI investigators and thousands of other going through the rubble were unwitting, how come not a single hint of a demolition charge or a piece of wiring has been found? They sure would have found those, since they are found at every demolition pile.

They might not have been recognizable as such, especially given how finely ground up almost everything was except for the structural steel.

Anyhow, what do you think of the iron spherules that were found not just by Dr. Steven Jones’s source, but also by the U.S. Geological Survey?

About Richard Gage: I would give him the benefit of the doubt before accusing him of deliberate video/audio fakery. For example, is it possible that he might have just gotten his version of the video from a bad source, or perhaps there might have been some error in file format conversions, or something? Have you tried to contact him about this matter yourself? I would suggest that you try pointing out the discrepancy to him in a polite manner, assuming it’s just an error, and then see how he responds to that, before jumping to the conclusion that he’s deliberately faking. Did you ever try that?

Why would you need to remove the explosion sounds from the soundtrack? Was it because when the WTC towers and WTC 7 collapsed, there were no such clearly audible explosions, thus confirming they were not demolished?

This after he was told by others:random jref’r wrote:

Interesting. Look at the source code for the page and this line jumps out:

–comment C:\911-PPT\S-Jones-PPT\oslodemo-cut2PFC.wmv —

That file isn’t available on the site, but Googling for oslodemo takes us to http://www.checktheevidence.com/911/…enJones/Flash/ , where there’s a file called oslodemo-cut2.mpg. That appears to be a longer version of the same footage, only with no audio. So I’m wondering, have they added the entire audio track from somewhere else?

He is impling (i guess) that the ae911truth shifted the audio to hide the sharp explosion sound heard at explosion world : http://www.implosionworld.com/cinema.htm (upper right corner thumbnail) so they are practicing deceit?

Seems like a bad edit job to sex up a muted mpg to me… nothing more and nothing implied.

In another post, imstacke added:

btw – the explosion world video is here (saved from cache) http://truthaction.org/media/Mov12.flv
Its a flash 8 video and does not support editting or importation in to transdecoders – I can understand why they chose to give up on that one and move to the muted video as source if they even saw the Implosion World version at all…(which I doubt as the Jones version is longer)

I am NOT Mark Roberts. Mark Roberts has his page here: http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/
Mark Roberts has an online screen name “Gravy”. I am “ref” from JREF forums. The site 911guide.googlepages.com is my own effort. I have written all the content unless otherwise mentioned. I have tried to contact Mr. Gage earlier, but he has not responded. I will retract my fakery claim, if I get a clear explanation. As always, I will not continue to promote something, if corrected otherwise. But thus far the thing I know is, that the audio on Gage file is not the original audio.

And about the debate. I would suggest Hoffman could debate the exact Mark Roberts mentioned earlier. Him and a man called Ronald Wieck can arrange a cable TV show called “Hardfire”, which is broadcasted on NY cable network. Earlier they have debated the likes of Dylan Avery & Jason Bermas and also Jim Fetzer.

I am NOT Mark Roberts. Mark Roberts has his page here: http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/
Mark Roberts has an online screen name “Gravy”. I am “ref” from JREF forums. The site 911guide.googlepages.com is my own effort. I have written all the content unless otherwise mentioned. I have tried to contact Mr. Gage earlier, but he has not responded. I will retract my fakery claim, if I get a clear explanation. As always, I will not continue to promote something, if corrected otherwise. But thus far the thing I know is, that the audio on Gage file is not the original audio.

I’ve quoted the above in the Truth Action forum.

About the other matters, I’ll email Jim Hoffman later today or tomorrow.

Social drama, meaningless details, claims that things are fake, posturing around credentials, baseless comparisons, etc. Ultimately these mainly just take up people’s time. Interestingly, many of the OT defenders and the hoax advocates within the movement engage in the same behavior.

Sure, some details which are true errors or misstatements or exaggerations can be corrected in the process, but in the end, one has to wonder if the time, energy and emotion was worth it, since any little fixes we can gain are packed in a seemingly endless diatribe of personal attacks, baseless claims and errors, like Mackey’s paper and JREF discussions.

But I really appreciate Diane’s analysis of her personal experience in coming around to the demolitions. This is the important stuff on this page, the stuff of complexity, the story, the experience, the humanity, what we’re about. This is what, now and in the end, will really have meaning.

If the demolition theory is true, which I believe it is, what will remain is stories like these.

Diane’s statement:

“Out on the sidewalk, before the meeting, I overheard two men debating about the possibility that the World Trade Center had been demolished with explosives. At that point I was not at all inclined to believe any such thing, but the debate aroused my curiosity.”

Reminds me of this statement:

“It’s always too soon to go home. And it’s always too soon to calculate effect. I once read an anecdote by someone in Women Strike for Peace, the first great antinuclear movement in the United States in 1963, the one that did contribute to a major victory: the end of aboveground nuclear testing with its radioactive fallout that was showing up in mother’s milk and baby teeth. She told of how foolish and futile she felt standing in the rain one morning protesting at the Kennedy White House. Years later she heard Dr. Benjamin Spock — one of the most high-profile activists on the issue then — say that the turning point for him was seeing a small group of women standing in the rain, protesting at the White House. If they were so passionately committed, he thought, he should give the issue more consideration himself.”http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/677/rebecca_solnit_on_hope_in_dark_times

Who would have thought that just being a crowd and saying or doing something you felt strongly about could have such repercussions? Who would have thought that months or years later, this compilation of information and analysis would then be produced?

I think the importance of these pages too, is in Diane’s unique ability to see both sides and distill the central meaning, and present it to both sides in a way that’s hard to deny.

Slide 23 Suggests all colummns failed simutaneously and WTC7 fell in 6.5 seconds. They did not and it fell in around 16 seconds.

Slide 27 Audio of emergency worker describing fall of WTC7. He could just as easily be describing the natural collapse of 7, rather than a demoiltion. The audio ends before emergency worker has finished speaking. Why?

Slide 28 Video in which Craig Bartmer says he was real close to building 7 when it collapsed and had to run away from it when it collapsed. Why? A collapse zone had been set up around 7 much earlier.

Slide 30 Headline of a story in the New York Times from November 29th, 2001: “Engineers baffled over collapse of 7 WTC”.

I think something up to date would be more appropriate, but we can all pick and choose our own quotes. Here are mine from the same article cited by Gage:

The building had suffered mightily from the fire that raged in it, and it had been wounded by the flying beams falling off the towers.

One tank holding 6,000 gallons of fuel was in the building to provide power to the command bunker on the 23rd floor. Another set of four tanks holding as much as 36,000 gallons were just below ground on the building’s southwest side for generators that served some of the other tenants.

Engineers and other experts have already uncovered evidence at the collapse site suggesting that some type of fuel played a significant role in the building’s demise

Still, experts concede, in a hellish day, 7 World Trade might have sustained structural injuries never envisioned in fire codes.

Any structure anywhere in the world, if you put it in these conditions, it will not stand,” Mr. Marcus said. “The buildings are not designed to be a torch.”

Slide 32-35 Pictures of buildings on fire as evidence that fires don’t cause collapse. No details of of their construction method or whether the fires were fought (WTC7 fires were not fought). The much used Windsor building is noteably absent, as the Truth Movement has finally cottoned on to the fact that the steel portion of this building did indeed collapse.

Slide 36 A picture of small fire at WTC7. Tell that to a firefighter who was there.

Slide 37 More pictures of collapsed buildings. No details of construction method nor cause of collapse.

Slide 44 Suggests evidence destroyed by FEMA. Evidence for this claim would be nice.

Slide 47

1) Complaint that WTC7 is ignored in the 9/11 Commission report. The 9/11 Comission report was never meant to be an analysis of building collapses – that task is NIST’s. What should they have said in the report? If they said ” analysis of the collapse of building 7 has been tasked to NIST” would Gage be happier?

2) Complaint that ARA Associates have been asked by NIST to analyse floors 8 to 46 only and claims this is because analysis of floors 1-7 and 47 will yield evidence of a controlled demoltion. NIST broke the analysis up in this manner because floors 8-46 are of a homogeneouse construction design. Floors 1-7 and 47 are of different design. NIST themselves will analyse these floors. I guess we can add the 200 or so scientists and engineers to the vast number of people involved in the conpiracy.

3) Quoted newspaper headlines of Max Cleland’s resignation from 9/11 commission. Gage seems to be intimating that Cleland’s resignation is connected to 1) and 2) above. This is incorrect and dishonest.

Slide 49 Claim that building 7 fell at freefall speed in 6.5 seconds. It did not.

Slide 51 Demolition expert Danny Jowenko confirms WTC7 controlled demolition by merley looking at a video. No explantion of how the building was rigged or the absence of loud demolition charges. Looking forward to the Twin Towers section where Danny Jowenko will appear confirming his belief that the towers were not a controlled demolition. (Oh dear, Jowenko is absent from that section).

Slide 52 Expert Hugo Bachmann gives opinion that WTC7 was probaby controlled demolition. A link to anything where Bachmann explains his reasoning would be good.

Slide 53 Two videos compared side by side. One of WTC7 and one of a controlled demolition. Zoom in on “squibs.” The “squibs” on WTC7 are clearly material attached to the building and not demolition “squibs.”

Slides 55-59 Series of slides where molten metal is conflated with molten steel. The photogram in slide 57 shows gound zero hotspots at a maximum of around 1377 degrees Fahrenheit – greater than the temperature at which, for example, aluminum and zinc melt, but nowhere near enough to melt steel. There is a highly dubious video clip in slide 59, where the speaker is abruptly cut of after he utters the word “molten”. I suspect that the source of the video clip would be enlightening as to what Gage is trying to do here.

Slides 60-65 Deal with foreknowledge of collapse. Yes, indeed the firefighter knew it would collapse. Their observations at the scene told them as much. BBC foreknowledge – add the BBC to the vast army of conspirators.

Slide 66 Gage asks ” Could Al Quaeda have gained unlimited access to the building to set explosives?” – Er, he hasn’t come close to proving that explosives were used by Al Qaeda or anyone else.

Another thing that bother me greatly is, that Gage is always presented as a professional analysing building collapses. But he is not. He is an architect. He draws what he wants to be built, and engireers decide how it works and how it’s done. He has no more understanding of structural design than any other of us. This is proven by zero calculations from his part to prove his claims. He has presented no original evidence, just parroting the claims of Griffin.

Besides, he has only been involved with low-rise projects. And he even admits in his own website that: “However, the 3 high-rise buildings at the World Trade Center which “collapsed” on 9/11 (the Twin Towers plus WTC Building #7) presented us with a body of evidence (i.e.controlled demolition) that was clearly outside the scope of our training and experience.” He says controlled demolition is clearly outside of his scopre of training and experience. So why on earth does he tour lecturing about controlled demolition? This is one contradicting individual.

It should also be noted in support of ref1 comments regarding Gage that none of the structural engineers on ae911truth have produced any calculations, engineering reports or journal articles in support of their opinions. They have, however produced some op-ed pieces and been interviewed on radio.

And about the debate. I would suggest Hoffman could debate the exact Mark Roberts mentioned earlier. Him and a man called Ronald Wieck can arrange a cable TV show called “Hardfire”, which is broadcasted on NY cable network. Earlier they have debated the likes of Dylan Avery & Jason Bermas and also Jim Fetzer.

I’ve written to Jim Hoffman, and he has replied telling me that he would be interested in a debate, but only in a relatively neutral environment, with a host who is capable of being neutral. He would not be interested in a debate with Ronald Wieck as a host.

I’ve also heard back from Richard Gage about the demolition video you complained about (with the “fake” audio). Apparently his video presentation was put together by a committee, not just by himself directly, and he has now asked his committee to track down this problem.

I haven’t yet written something I had hoped to have written by now, namely a detailed, rigorously reasoned defense of the (to me obvious) idea that the almost perfectly symmetrical collapse of WTC 7 (relative to, say, the behavior of the top parts of WTC 1 and 2, especially the latter, as they began to collapse) indicates a strong likelihood of a not-purely-natural collapse. It will take me a while to write that, and I’ve had too many distractions lately.

Tomorrow night I now plan to respond to charlienneb’s comments, above, on Richard Gage’s video presentation. Then, later in the week I hope, I’ll write some detailed posts on WTC 7 and on building collapses generally.

On a lighter note, in response to the remark by a Screw Loose Change commenter about how “they” are “going to crucify” me: I’m sure I’ll be “crucified” by some folks in the Alex Jones crowd, once they get around to noticing my About page, to which I just now added a bunch of stuff this evening.

Hi Diane, hope you guys can pull off the debate. I probably should have resisted the opportunity to add that comment, but I hope you can see it’s intended as a compliment to you if not to the movement.

On Gage, who appears to have become the issue in the comments, I’ve not managed to get all the way through “Blueprint” yet, but in an earlier speech at Sonoma State (which is also on Google Video), Gage claimed that insurance companies increased their premiums by 2000 percent, and that this was why they were so willing to pay Silverstein the proceeds on WTC-7.

(no link to video per site policy, but the section I’m quoting comes at about 29:40 in the Sonoma State speech):

“Now the insurance companies have done quite well, and you say what about them? They’ve raised their premiums 2000 percent on buildings and this payout (to Silverstein) is peanuts compared to this–those premium profits.”

First of all, Gage is wrong on the increased premium percentage by a ludicrous margin; I found a press release by the NYC comptroller from November 2002 and while the Comptroller gripes about gouging, the actual increases were off by over 1900% from what Gage claimed:

“Businesses located in high-rise buildings in Manhattan, particularly those in, or even near, landmark or “trophy” properties considered by insurers to be at risk of becoming terrorist targets had the greatest increases in premiums. Large sized accounts, with premiums over $1,000,000, experienced an average 73.3% increase per policy, while medium-sized accounts, those paying premiums between $50,000 and $1,000,000, encountered an average increase of 49.5%, and small-sized accounts, which pay premiums of less than $50,000, an average 39% increase.”

Besides, think about what Gage is really saying and you realize it’s nutty:

Insurance Adjuster: Great news, boss! We’ve discovered that WTC-7 was actually a controlled demolition and we don’t have to pay Silverstein hundreds of millions of dollars!
Insurance Executive: You idiot! Of course we’ll pay him hundreds of millions of dollars. And we’ll increase our premiums by tens of billions of dollars!
Insurance Adjuster: Boss, you’re a genius!

Of course, this ridiculous explanation doesn’t explain why the insurance companies fought him so hard on the towers and the two incidents issue. And in fact all insurance companies have very active fraud investigators for the simple reason that it stands to save them money.

“By last year, pricing had come back down; in 2006, the costs in New York, if not the rest of the country, have flattened out. How much of a factor was 9/11 on insurance rates in the city? Did the industry use 9/11 as an excuse to raise prices, or was such an increase inevitable? What can co-op and condo associations do to reduce their insurance costs? And, most importantly, is the recent price stabilization here to stay—or is it the calm before the storm?”

But think about Gage and how casually (well, to be fair, he stammered quite a bit) he threw out that ridiculous claim about 2000% premium increases.

Gage is a huckster. He’s getting the patter down a little better nowadays but the real substance is not there. It’s most obvious when he gets out of his purported field of expertise, and oddly that is where he spends a great deal of his time.

Everyone, in future comments, please try to avoid casting aspersions on people’s motives, e.g. calling someone a “huckster.” Let’s just get down to the business of correcting errors and leave it at that.

Anyhow, the whole insurance angle regarding Silverstein is not something I personally have researched yet, although I’m familiar with the commonly-made claims. In the meantime, all I have to say about Silverstein is this:

In any serious criminal investigation of the destruction of any building, the landlord should be on the preliminary list of suspects. That’s because arson by landlords, for such purposes as insurance fraud, is indeed a commonplace crime. There was an epidemic of this sort of thing back in the 1970’s, when whole sections of the Bronx consisted of almost nothing but burned-out buildings.

None of this proves that Larry Silverstein is actually guilty of any crime. And indeed he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, he should be on the preliminary list of suspects.

“Craig Carlsen — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 8]
… you just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was.”

“You just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the floors collapsing to where the plane had hit”

Seems he intentionally left out a rather important part, doesn’t it?

It has just now been brought to my attention that more complete versions of at least some of these testimonies, including the one you mentioned above, can be found on this page on Jim Hoffman’s other site. I have not yet checked whether the 911research.wtc7.net page includes all the testimonies excerpted on the 911review.com page you’re complaining about, or whether all the versions on the 11research.wtc7.net page are complete. If they are all on the latter page in sufficiently complete form, then the problem you’re complaining about could be solved simply by putting a brief note on the 911review.com page stating that the testimonies have been edited to include just immediate observations and not subsequent opinions, followed by a link to the 911research.wtc7.net page, indicating that more complete versions can be found there.

Richard a working architect and is doing 9/11 presentations all over the country — so not at all unexpected for him to either take awhile in responding or potentially never get around to some emails. Diane is in touch with him and he is responding to her, so he will get to the issues brought here.

I appreciate Diane’s ability to keep ontop of behavior on here. Much of the reason that honest and powerful debates on the facts are missing is due to behaviors — accusations, name calling, exaggerations, etc.

It reminds of some of the fascinating Israel / Palestine protests I’ve seen in person, starting off loudly with attack slogans on signs, rude chants, falgs all waving, etc. But as they carry on for hours, until only handfuls of people remain to debate the facts in small clusters, the more they are able to talk reasonably — when that can happen — the more they find they can agree on some aspects and some empathy emerges. That’s when they can actually hear the other side. I’ve seen these talks go on and on after everyone has left, even the police. And people shake hands at the end.